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Pierre Koffmann prepares a dish close to his heart: venison with red wine and raspberry sauce, served with red cabbage. Inspired by his grandmother’s cooking, this recipe blends French tradition with rich, seasonal flavours.
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In his BBC Maestro course, Pierre shares the techniques, recipes and principles that shaped his legendary career, helping you bring classic French cooking into your own kitchen.
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38 Comments
first
there oui are
Looks so simple and delicious. Love Venison.
Is this course available in English?
Very interesting, simple, and pleasant to listen to. A wonderful cook without any pretense. When I first saw you, I immediately bought your book, Classic Koffmann. You are simply fantastic.
Very humble with his cooking for a great chef
This looks divine! Will absolutely try! ❤🍷
Grandmother sounds like she was a really cool lady 😎
Finally, someone who's calling out the gross trend of cooking food in a plastic bag. This old school recipe looks delicious 😋
I'm addicted to his and Marco's videos, they are true masters and great teachers because the own their craft to the point of being able to share it making it look easy. Thank you
That venison is a tad overcooked for me.
The problem with a probe for me is you’re letting the juices flow out and you’re damaging the meat grain. You gotta be confident in your cooking.
superb.
This man is an absolute legend.
Beautiful 🤗
Yeeeees another great Koffmann recipe! I already do a venison dish similar but with blackberry and port, amazing.
Marco once said “no fingers, no food.” I guess he learnt it from Pierre.
I wish I could have ate a meal prepared by him he’s so humble yet truly a superstar chef
Bravo!!! chef Koffmann!!!
The smell of venison filled the small kitchen, a slow, earthy perfume that hung in the air like a memory one could not quite name. Pierre Koffmann, known to the locals as the reclusive French chef who lived above the bakery in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, tilted the pan to judge the sauce’s hue. A shade too bright, he thought. The raspberries were impatient, the wine too eager to please. He turned down the flame and stirred in silence.
Outside, the last light of the afternoon slanted across the cobblestones, soft as an old coat. The village had emptied after lunch. Only the sound of a bicycle chain, the bark of a distant dog, the river muttering to itself below the cliffs. It was a place that did not ask questions. A man could disappear here, if he were careful and polite.
Pierre always was.
He had been living here for four years now, a life measured in teaspoons, in the slow arithmetic of the stove. The villagers spoke fondly of his cooking but knew nothing else. They assumed he had retired from some Paris restaurant, perhaps disgraced, perhaps merely tired. The truth was simpler and more complicated. Retirement, for him, had been less a decision than an act of survival.
He trimmed the venison with surgical precision, every movement deliberate. Knife-edge against sinew, the sound of control. In the old days, his hands had done other things with similar economy – sliding files from drawers, matching typefaces on forged letters, listening to the breath of a phone line. There was comfort in the repetition. Even here, far from London, far from the Circus, he found that method was the only true companion left to him.
He thought of Control sometimes, though never for long. The old man’s voice still floated through memory, clipped and ironic, bearing the weight of the unspoken. Karla’s shadow, too, moved occasionally through the rooms of his mind, though fainter now, like a photograph left too long in the sun. One learns to live with ghosts, Smiley had once told a younger man. What one cannot live with is the noise of one’s own conscience.
He added the stock, dark and glossy, watching it merge with the wine. The scent deepened, grew more human. Cooking, he had discovered, shared a language with intelligence work. Patience, observation, a trust in unseen processes. Both demanded that one accept truth – like flavor – could not be forced, only coaxed.
From his window, he could see the bakery opposite. Every morning at six, Madame Rivière would unlock the shutters, her movements as predictable as clockwork. Pierre had mapped them all, the villagers – their routes, their habits, the infidelities of their timing. It was not distrust that drove him, only habit. The pattern of ordinary life was, after all, the only defense a man like him could build.
The cabbage simmered in another pot, red giving way to a bruised purple. He stirred it gently, remembering a long-ago dinner in Hamburg, when a contact had slipped him a microdot inside a clove of garlic. The absurdity of it made him smile now. Back then, everything had seemed so grave, so final. But the years had proved that nothing ever ended. Not truly.
He set the table for one, a single glass, a folded napkin, the knife placed slightly askew. The ritual mattered. In the discipline of arrangement lay the illusion of order.
As he plated the venison, a knock sounded below. Faint, almost apologetic. He froze, listening. The knock came again, then a pause, then three soft taps. Not random. The rhythm of it stirred something old inside him, a pattern from another life.
He wiped his hands on the cloth, slow and deliberate, and moved to the window. The street was empty except for a figure at the corner, half-hidden beneath the eaves. Too still to be local.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the space between breaths. The scent of the sauce, the hiss of the flame, the tick of the wall clock. He felt the familiar tightening in his chest, not fear exactly, but readiness.
Then the figure moved on. A stranger, perhaps a tourist, gone as quickly as they had come. Still, he waited another full minute before turning off the stove. Old habits demanded verification.
He sat finally, tasted the meat. Perfectly tender, though the sauce had reduced too far. He ate slowly, chewing each bite as if decoding it. Across from him, the empty chair seemed to watch.
He thought of London in winter, of rain on the cobbles outside Cambridge Circus, of the sound of filing cabinets closing one by one as the service shrank into history. They had all gone, one way or another. Guillam to retirement, Connie to her books, Control to the grave. And Smiley? To France, to the kitchen, to the long rehearsal of silence.
Outside, the church bell marked the hour. The air cooled, thick with woodsmoke and the faint sweetness of fruit. Somewhere in the distance, a car engine started, then faded down the valley road.
He rose, poured the remaining wine into his glass, and carried it to the window. Below, the streetlights flickered on one by one, their glow trembling against the stone. The village slept, unaware of the watcher above.
Smiley lifted the glass, as though in a quiet toast to no one in particular. To truth, to deception, to the small mercies of ordinary life. The wine was sharp, unfinished. He liked it that way.
And when the last light went out across the square, he stayed a moment longer at the window, his reflection merged with the night, a ghost among ghosts, watching still.
This man must be an amateur, he's not wearing black gloves.
Chef koffman is a great mentor
Wow. Coulda done that with his eyes closed. Everything done to absolute perfection by a master.
Chef Koffman is a lovable, nice, humble person. He is focused on the recipe and teaching us how to do it best. Marco on the other hand is trying to turn a simple act of scrambling eggs into a religious experience. Always philosophizing about bullshit, always whispering like he is about to tell us the secrets of the universe and all this over some mundane dishes that are mostly smoke and mirrors. That explains why Koffman is a legend and the other guy is a "controversial TV star".
That cigar looks amazing
"Most of them cook in a bag..Its not for me" so true Pierre, young chefs these days don't know what real cooking is and how to use their senses to cook. They think they're masterchefs because they can let a water bath cook their medium rare steak in a plastic bag. Love the old school approach. Sous vide takes all the enjoyment and excitement out of cooking.
OK, I'll ask the stupid question: is that vension haunch or tenderloin/fillet? Getting better at idenifying meat cuts, but not always!
Bien fait, mais…, on ne monte pas la sauce avec du beurre, avant de la servir ? (il y a du beurre en mise en place sur la table ?) Et, pas de frisettes avec le chou rouge braisé ? (veal stock : Jus de veau lié, ou non lié ) ? Merçi 🙂
"The venison, you see, she is perfect well done. Just like the Queen she like it. In France, we call zat overdone."
Mama, Grandma, etc often did it better then anyone 😅
NON ! PAS de framboises ou de fraises, PAS de chocolat, et PAS de fleurs !
I was getting along fine until he mentioned "veal stock" which isn't found in my kitchen very often…
Yes! My grandmothers cooking was superb! And I am not a chef. Now then: "Venison and red wine raspberry sauce". Easy. Now we put "Raspberry vinegar"….Raspberry vinegar? And where and how do I get Raspberry Vinegar? Grandmother….are you there?
We don't want our meet tou bi draille, that would be such a shame. Chapeau bas chef, gardez l'accent, votre anglais est impecc.
Would love to try venison someday. My backyard deer friend may object, but I won’t tell her.
For a man, a chef, of his caliber, to say he probably won’t make the dish as well as his grandma is all you need to know. He is a culinary genius.
your venison doesn't turn out as good as your grandmother's, because she would've never used oil to cook venison! only clarified butter, tallow or lard.
I love French food. The chef has more butter and than oil.